


sic transit gloria mundi

by voicedimplosives



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Funeral, Gen, Sad Ending, Some Days Your Muse Wants Fluff, Some Days Your Muse Wants Sadness, kids being kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 10:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15947189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives/pseuds/voicedimplosives
Summary: Before they were pilot and padawan, before they were Commander and Master of the Knights of Ren, before they were the Spark that Would Light the Fire and the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy —They were two little boys. And there was a moment, shimmering and ephemeral, when they might have been friends.





	sic transit gloria mundi

Sic transit gloria mundi

How doth the busy bee,

Dum vivimus vivamus,

I stay mine enemy!

—Emily Dickinson, St. Valentine '52

 

 

 

Ben Solo awakens slowly, in blinks and yawns. The warm Chandrilan sun splashes across his sleeper, lifting him up, up, up out of the gloomy morass of his dreams and into a bright, quiet morning. His synfleece footie pajamas and thick grov fur blanket have left him damp with sweat; wet tendrils of hair stick to his brow. He yawns one more time, as if in doing so he might exhale the darkness, and then sits up to study the world beyond his bedside window.

 

Hanna City gleams silvery and pearlescent in the early daylight, high quality materials used to erect luxurious buildings on a resource-rich planet. Skyscrapers soar above his head. Airspeeders of all size and purpose whizz past his family’s penthouse apartment windows with muffled roars, their engines working furiously to keep them aloft and moving along their skylane. In the distance, Ben can just make out the Silver Sea lapping gently at the glittering white shoreline. A flash of light catches his eyes—the clouds have shifted, and now the sun beams down upon the ornately tiled argentate and aquamarine dome of the opera house. Now the floating skygarden, which hovers somewhere over the Polis district like a moveable oasis, glows green, lush, _alive_.

 

One time, Ben’s father took him to the skygarden. He loved it, loved the abundance of life, loved how the air, humid and thick, stirred in his lungs, loved to run his small fingers over all of the leaves—smooth and waxen, rough and fibrous, furled into little green curlicues, flat and wide and bigger than Ben’s whole body—he loved each of them. Han held his other hand the entire time they were there, Ben’s fingers tucked against his father’s warm calloused palm. It was wonderful. He wonders if Han might take him back sometime.

 

Maybe if he is good.

 

Down, far below, if Ben cranes his birdlike neck, he can see some of the balconies where people are outside, enjoying the fair weather. He can almost see the ground-level streets where Chandrilan humans and pantorans stride hurriedly alongside countless visitor species, all intent on carrying out their business, all full of import and purpose.

 

Maybe some of them know his mother and father. Probably they do. Ben's uncle Lando told him a secret once, as he pushed his shoulders into Ben's and spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone: Ben's parents are very famous, very important.

 

Ben is too, although he's not supposed to repeat that out loud.

 

“Young Master Solo, you are awake?” warbles a mechanical voice, and Ben whirls to see that Elsie—T-2LC—has rolled into his bedroom, and begun to pick stray  pieces clothing up off the floor.

 

He frowns at Elsie. Normally he would tell him to get out, that he is busy, but Ben is five years old now, and he must behave better. His mother has told him so. Today is going to be a very important day, although his parents have not exactly informed him why—only that he must be on his best behavior. So he says nothing, simply watches as the droid bustles about his room, putting away toys and trinkets that have been left lying around, brushing away imaginary dust from the surface of his desk, his gyrothopter, his tri-wheeler, his enormous stuffed wampa.

 

“Up! Rise! You must eat something before your parents return!” cries Elsie.

 

Ben’s frown deepens, his lips coming together in a pout. He is five years old, and he must not cry because his parents are not home when he wakes up. Elsie is here. The other household droids are here. He is safe. He knows this.

 

Nevertheless. “Where _are_ they?” he asks, rubbing his eyes as the droid pulls back his bedding, making an ‘up-and-at-’em’ sort of gesture. When he hops down onto the soft, heated flex-carpet, Elsie begins to make the bed.

 

“You mustn’t worry yourself Young Master Solo, they’ll be returning any moment. Come, wouldn’t you like some hotcakes? You can watch BX-778 fix them for you, with bantha butter and carbosyrup, just how you like!”

 

At that, Ben hesitates, one foot out in the hallway, one still in his bedroom. He isn’t exactly sure why, but for some reason, he dislikes the kitchen droid—distrusts it. _It’s ugly,_ he thinks. _That’s probably why._

 

“I want to watch _Moray and Faz_ ,” he declares, a slight whining tone to his voice. He doesn’t want to sit in the kitchen with BX-778 and Elsie and the little housekeeping droid that’s always scurrying around, vacuuming and tidying.

 

“Very well,” says Elsie, in what might conceivably pass for a put-upon sigh. “Watch your program, and I shall bring your hotcakes out when they are ready.”

 

He frowns again at the droid, feeling anxious. Is it possible to disappoint a machine? Where are his parents? Will Elsie tell them that he has misbehaved this morning?

 

They _told_ him to be good. He must be good.

 

“Sorry,” he mutters, toeing at the carpet. There is a tightness in his throat. Tears, unbidden and hot, begin to blur his vision.

 

The droid tilts his head. He thinks if Elsie could blink in confusion, he might— but then, it’s hard to know what reaction his processors are producing behind the unchanging smile on his plasteel face.

 

“Young Master Solo,” he says at last, and despite the tinny nature of his voice, it is softened somehow—gentle. “There is no reason for dismay.”

 

Ben heaves a weary little sigh of his own, shrugs his thin shoulders, and turns towards the living room.

 

. . .

 

The body is cold. The body is still.

 

Poe Dameron is eight years old, and he has snuck into a place where he should not be. This is neither the first nor the last time he will do this.

 

In the cold duracrete-walled cellar of his family home on the planet Yavin 4, there is a worktable. All his life, if Poe was looking for and unable to find his mother or father, they would invariably be down here. Repairing, cleaning, restoring, building, disassembling. One of them, sometimes. Together, side by side, an easy stream of jokes flowing between them—often.

 

Now the table is cleared, except for the body.

 

He shouldn’t be down here. His father, Kes, has told him not to come down here.

 

But Kes is busy preparing a pyre for this afternoon’s funeral, consumed by his grief, and young Poe has already developed a penchant for staring directly into the eye of the storm.

 

Shara Bey’s olive skin has always had a golden sheen—gleaming in the sun or under the glowlamps of their home, even in the wan starlight of space—she shined brightly.

 

She shines no more. Her skin is close to the same tone, yes, _almost_ right, if perhaps a little pale. But there is some luminescence she seemed to carry inside her, something that made her radiate warmth, and that is gone.

 

She doesn’t breathe, she doesn’t move. Her eyes are closed, and they will never open again.

 

Poe cannot breathe either, as he stares and stares and stares at his mother’s lifeless face. Even when he hears the door to the cellar creak open, knowing his father will be angry that he’s down here—he cannot move. Cannot think.

 

The body is cold. The body is still.

 

He lays a hand on hers—the flesh is inert, almost icy. Silent. It is just flesh, just a vessel, and all the things that flesh can do, all the things a body can be—all of that is finished now, for Shara.

 

“Poe,” says his father, in a tone that holds both admonishment and consolation. “Come away from her now—come on upstairs.”

 

Two big warm hands land on his shoulders, gentle but firm, and then he is being steered away from the worktable, towards the steps.

 

“Dad,” he croaks, “she’s—”

 

“Alright, buddy,” he says, cutting off Poe’s lament. When they reach the top of the stairs and step into the large airy living room, he turns to look at his father. The sun shines in through the wall of windows on the far side of the room; outside, mist rises from the dense jungle that surrounds them. Its trees sway in the morning breeze. A whisper bird calls out, from a distant nest.

 

The light makes his father’s bloodshot eyes glow a copper-lined russet, pupils contracted to tiny pinpoints. He sniffs, gives an irritated grunt, then staggers over to a control panel in one wall. With the flick of a few switches, the windows darken to a grey tint, and the room becomes as dreary as the cellar.

 

Poe can still see his father, though. And Kes looks like he’s been hit with an electro-prod staff. Besides the tired pallor of his face, he is wearing the same rumpled clothes he has had on for three days—although now they are drenched with sweat, from this morning’s labor. His hair has grown lank, and dull. He stands with the posture of a man much older than Kes’s forty odd years.

 

There is an unnatural silence between the two of them, as they stand in the dim living room staring at one another. The silence moved in right after his mother died, an unwelcome visitor that has made itself at home, and Poe doesn’t _fully_ understand it—but he understands enough.

 

He understands that every system has a sun, around which its planets orbits. Some have more, but there must always be at least one. And should that star flicker and expire, the planets will be left without their anchor—without their gravity. They will hurtle off-course into the dark loneliness of deep frozen space.

 

Together, but also alone, they will drift.

 

“She’s gone,” he blurts out, the very sentiment his father tried to shut down a minute earlier. Kes sighs; his empty restless gaze shies away from Poe, like the sight might burn his retinas if he looks for too long.

 

“She’s—yes, but—she’s gone to a better place. A good place. Like what Master Luke talks about, y’know?”

 

Poe has only met the famous Jedi Master a handful of times, when he had taken a break from his work establishing the new Jedi praxeum, inside the old ziggurat that once housed the Great Temple. Whenever he comes to visit he drinks caf with Poe’s mother, who went on missions with him during and after the war. They laugh together, which is nice, because the first time Poe met the Jedi Master he was very afraid of him, but now he thinks of him as just another one of his parents’ war pals. Master Luke often speaks enigmatically, in pithy aphorisms, but he’s a good friend. His mother is fond of the man.

 

His mother _was_ fond of him, Poe chides himself. He needs to start thinking of her in the past tense. Will that ever not feel strange?

 

Will a time really come when all of this will be in the past?

 

“Poe.” His father’s voice is guttural, like the grating buzzsaw drone of the piranha beetle. He shakes himself loose of his recollections, and peers up at the man. Kes collapses onto the couch with a soft groan.

 

“This is—come here, come sit with me,” he entreats. His head sags forward, chin almost touching his sternum. Poe moves to the couch, lowering himself gingerly onto a cushion. He doesn’t take his eyes off his father’s face. A duel between exhaustion and heartache rages there, and he wants to know who will be the victor.

 

“This was your mother’s,” Kes says.

 

He pulls from his pocket a simple ring—a thick band of some silver-tinted metal, marked with a trail of dimples and dents where it has been banged around by his mother’s day to day life. It is attached to a delicate chain, also silver.

 

“I want you to have it.”

 

Poe blinks up at his father, and his father blinks down at him. Together, they blink—until they can speak without their voices breaking.

 

“Thanks, dad,” Poe mumbles.

 

“Yeah,” his father says, equally indistinct. “Sure.” He stretches the chain around the fingers of his hands, then carefully lowers it over Poe’s head, letting it drop onto his shoulders. The weight of it is heavy on his clavicles. The ring rests snugly against his solar plexus.

 

“Poe.” Kes rubs the back of his neck. “You don’t have to stay today, if you don’t want to. You could—just, I don’t know, say hello to everyone, and then—go inside.”

 

He scowls. “You said this is when we say goodbye to mom.”

 

“Well, yes. It is. But—”

 

“I have to say goodbye, don’t I?” Desperation makes his question come out whiny, indignant.

 

“You could… just say it… to yourself,” Kes suggests. “Not out there, with all these people and the pyre—”

 

“I want to.” A firm declaration, his arms crossed over his chest. He stares up at his father, who looks lost, who looks unmoored, who is finally looking back at him—but it is with confusion, with dismay.

 

“Yeah, okay,” Kes concedes, with a weary nod, “if you want to. Okay.”

 

" _People were hurting. People were suffering. Your father and I couldn't sit and do nothing,_ " his mother used to say, when Poe had asked about the how’s and why’s of the Galactic Civil War. _I cannot sit and do nothing,_ he wants to tell his father. Shara Bey would not have done nothing. Shara Bey would have gone to the funeral. Shara Bey would carry on. He wants to say this, but he does not. He says nothing, instead.

 

Yet another moment of silence settles onto the couch between them. This one is colder than the others: it is like the silence of space, the silence of two planets slipping off into the void, unable to reach other through the nebula of loss, unable to be heard above the roaring hush of untimely tragedy. Poe is very afraid he is about to cry, but then—

 

A door opens somewhere in the house, the sound of advancing footsteps thunderous in the miserable lull. L’ulo L’ampar appears on the threshold of the living room, his crimson eyes shining, his green brow furrowed.

 

“Kes,” he says, by way of greeting, offering a grave nod. “Poe.”

 

“Uncle L’ula!” Poe is excited to see the tall, lanky Duros, who his mother held in such high esteem. She has told him many stories of the commander’s bravery, and L’ula always let Poe explore his starfighter any time he comes to visit.

 

“L’ampar,” sighs his father, sounding relieved. “You made it.”

 

“Yes,” L’ula says, and he moves towards the couch. “Had to fly for two days straight, but I wasn’t going to miss this. You hear from Shara's father?"

 

"Won't be making it."

 

"Shame." L'ula shrugs, and that seems to be the end of the discussion. "Dameron, it’s almost one o’clock. People will start arriving soon. Poe, how about you come take a look at my old Delta-12, let your father use the ‘fresher before everyone gets here?”

 

Poe knows this invitation is being made because of the way his father looks. L’ula is doing his father a kindness, like all the other kind things he has done for Poe’s family. Kes lets out a shuddering breath, and stands. He clasps the Duros’ large hand, gives a grateful nod.

 

Then he turns back to Poe. “That alright, buddy? Want to check out L’ula’s starfighter?”

 

“Is that a  _Skysprite_ -class?” Poe asks.

 

L’ula gives a tight chuckle. “That’s right. Syliure-31 long-range hyperdrive module.”

 

“Really?” He raises an eyebrow at L’ula. “I didn't know they had that kinda juice.”

 

“Made some modifications,” L’ula shoots back. “Also added a Dymek HM-6 launcher.”

 

“Wow,” breathes Poe, glancing up at his father. Kes is not listening, though. Kes’s eyes have gone glassy, and vacant. He is staring out the window, he is staring at nothing. His chest rises and falls as an afterthought, a habit, but he is otherwise immobile. Still. Cold. Inert.

 

“Dameron, hit the ‘fresher,” L’ula says, a direct command cushioned by the sympathetic tone in which it is issued. “Poe and I will be outside.”

 

“Yeah. Yes.” His father pitches off towards his bedroom. Poe watches him go.

 

He moves like a man who is headed to his own execution.

 

He moves like a planet without a sun.

 

. . .

 

The hotcakes are very good. Ben pours extra carbosyrup onto his plate so he can dip each forkful, then returns his attention to the holoprojector. Moray and Faz are stranded on the faraway planet of Jakku, where only the desiccated corpses of the Empire’s fleet reside. They have teamed up to find the crown jewels of Empress Teta, which have gone missing from their museum.

 

“Aw gee, Faz, I dunno if it’s a good idea to climb around inside an old Star Destroyer!” Moray gripes, looking up at the  _Inflictor’s_ looming hulls with dread.

 

Faz grins, and turns towards one of the gaping hangars. “Don’t be such a baby, Moray!”

 

“Yeah!” cries Ben, raising his fork in solidarity. “Don’t be such a _baby_!”

 

“Who’s a baby?” He turns. Han Solo, leaning in the doorway, grins at him. “Morning, kid.”

 

“Dad!”

 

“What are the old scoundrels up to this week?” asks Han, although he makes no effort to see for himself, instead staying where he is.

 

“Chancellor Mothma—” here his father chuckles, then gestures for him to continue, “wants them to find Empress Teta’s crown!”

 

“Crown, huh? Your mother used to wear a crown. Isn’t that right, princess?”

 

Han has shifted his head, no longer looking at Ben—so he follows his father’s gaze, and finds that his mother is standing beside the holoprojector, having come in from the living room’s other entrance. Arms crossed, posture rigid, she nearly vibrates with anger. She doesn’t shout, though. That’s good.

 

“Good morning, Ben,” she grits out, through her teeth. Stiffly, she crosses the room to press a soft kiss against Ben’s cheek. Then she twists to glare at her husband. “Han? Come with me.”

 

“Uh-oh, looks like I’m in trouble,” Han mutters, sing-song, as his mother turns on her heel and steps out into the hallway, where Ben cannot see.

 

“ _Han_ ,” he hears his mother snap, from the hallway, and with a sheepish shrug, his father disappears.

 

“Why isn’t he ready?” she asks, voice sparking like a live wire.

 

“Had to do a favor—”

 

“You _knew_ I had to be at the Senate to discuss the events on Coruscant, Han. You knew that. You promised me you’d wake him up, and explain about Shara. Have you?”

 

Han scoffs. “Oh c’mon, I wasn’t even gone that lon—”

 

“Wait, _what_ did you just say? You left him here alone?” she seethes.

 

“Leia, don’t start—not today. He had Elsie, he was fine. Eating hotcakes. Watching his holoprogram. Not a scratch on him.”

 

There is a moment’s pause that writhes like an angry sabercat right before the pounce, and somehow—Ben can feel his parents’ spiraling tempers through the walls. He can imagine vividly the way Leia’s mouth pulls down at the edges, her teeth clenched together; just as clearly, he can see the deep creases in Han’s brow, the way his eyes roam the space looking for something to distract his furious wife, how his broad shoulders rise up in a defensive shrug.

 

At last, there is a sigh. His mother’s, he thinks. Subdued, at least for the moment, she asks, “Have you spoken with Kes?”

 

“Not really,” Han says. “But all the pathfinders are gonna be there, I think.”

 

Another lull, but this one is not spiked with the hostility that sizzled in the air a moment ago. Both of his parents sound… deflated. Tired.

 

“I can’t believe it. I still remember how brave she was when we went to Naboo, and during Cinder, I just thought—” Leia falters, and Ben notes the soft rustle of clothes moving. He thinks his parents might be embracing. “I don’t know, she seemed invincible to me.”

 

“You saved her ass that day.” A reminder—gentle, teasing.

 

“ _Han_.” A reproach, but neither loud nor sharp-tongued. Also gentle. Perhaps teasing.

 

“She was a _hell_ of a pilot,” he says.

 

Another heavy sigh. Whose, Ben cannot be sure. He has forgotten all about Moray and Faz and their adventure now; he eavesdrops on his parents with rapt attention.

 

His father adds, “I hear from Luke that their kid is, too.”

 

“And?”

 

“I’m just saying, maybe he needs a teacher, talent like that—it should be encouraged!”

 

Tension bleeds back into Leia’s voice. “What about _our_ son?”

 

“Well—yeah, of course…” Han coughs, backpedaling, “Both of ‘em, sure. When Ben is older.”

 

“Older,” Leia repeats, monotone. “Right.” There’s something to her voice—disbelief? Does she share his father’s hesitation to be near Ben? Has he only imagined the reluctance in his father’s voice? More rustling of clothes—their tender moment has ended. A second later, his mother appears in the doorway, Han peeking over her head. “ _Someone_ needs to get dressed.” She tucks her chin into her shoulder, looking up at Han. “You want to do the honors?”

 

“Leia.”

 

“ _Han_ ,” she shoots back, severe. “Spend a little time with him. Today’s going to be difficult, for all of us. Just—help him with his buckles.”

 

Ben watches this exchange, studying the harsh set of his mother’s jaw—a sure sign that she’s annoyed. He notices how his father rolls his eyes, once she turns back to smile at Ben—and how Han gives a soft pat on Leia’s hip before acquiescing with a grumbled, “Yes, dear.”

 

He’s not quite sure how he feels about what he’s just overheard—isn’t quite certain he fully understands. He never is, when his parents quarrel like this. If someone were to ask him, though, which no one ever has, he’d probably say that the tiff is not the worst he’s ever heard, and that it was mercifully short-lived.

 

That’s not to say he’s enjoyed hearing it, nor sensing their emotions. But—Ben doesn’t talk about that. How could he explain it? What if it’s a bad thing?

 

More pressingly: who is this boy, that his father is so eager to teach instead of him? Who is Kes, who is Shara?

 

But before Ben can give voice to his doubts, his father says cheerily, “Alright, c’mon big guy! Time to get dressed!” He gives Ben his usual lopsided smirk and Ben thinks: _maybe there isn’t really any problem. Maybe I only imagined the tension between my parents. Maybe my father is not afraid of me._

 

_Maybe it’s all in my mind._

 

. . .

 

They stand stiffly side by side as the attendants arrive. His father is stoic now, resolve made firm by a long shower and a change of clothes. He shakes the hand of every single one of them. Respects are paid in dry, small voices—near-whispers that barely carry above the raucous whoops and trills of the jungle.

 

“Some of them are very important people,” Kes mutters to Poe, in between handshakes.

 

L’ulo stands on Poe’s other side, one hand resting on his shoulder, and at hearing this, he gives a grim nod towards a woman whose bearing and attire suggests royalty. “Like her.”

 

“Her majesty, Sosha Soruna,” his father adds. She is petite, although most of her form is obscured by a gown that is far too warm for the hot, humid afternoon—midnight black, a high gilded collar, quilted, with a fur-lined hem and a train that drags behind her in the tall grass. From her headdress hang two ornamental appendages, like lekku except fashioned from her long blue-black hair; they sway around her waist as she walks. A bevy of silent, black velvet-clad handmaidens surround her.

 

“Sergeant Dameron,” she says, as she offers her hand for him to kiss. It peeks out of her bell-shaped sleeve, and it looks—small, Poe thinks. Unwrinkled. _She’s hardly older than me._ “Commander L'ampar.”

 

Both men offer, in turn, a deep bow, which she receives solemnly, her ivory-painted face and crimson red lips so still they might be carved from stone.

 

“Lieutenant Bey not only saved Naboo and others from the Cinder operation, she was…” Sosha pauses, but only for an instant, just a hint of vulnerability crossing her face before she is once more a composed stateswoman, “—a remarkable woman. An incredible pilot.”

 

“Thank you, your majesty,” his father murmurs, and when Sosha’s eyes turn to Poe, he feels L’ulo press down on his shoulder, guiding him into a clumsy bow.

 

“Your son?”

 

“Yes, this is Poe.”

 

She takes a deep breath. “I am sorry for your loss, Poe.”

 

With that, she retreats, her handmaidens following, and leaves room for the next attendant to approach.

 

That attendant happens to be Master Skywalker. And not far behind him—Princess Leia, a senator of the new Galactic Republic now, along with Captain Han Solo, the famous General Lando Calrissian, and a wide-eyed, dark-haired little boy.

 

“I didn’t actually think so many of these folks would show up,” Kes says out of the side of his mouth, just loud enough for L’ulo and Poe to hear.

 

L’ulo frowns at him. “Of course they have, Kes—it’s _Shara_.”

 

Kes gives a weak little heft of his shoulders, but before he can reply—and Poe is very curious as to what he might’ve said, an apology perhaps, or something about how people drift apart, maybe—Leia greets him.

 

“Dameron,” she says, with a sad smile, then seems to reconsider. “Kes. Poe. L’ulo. I am so... well, she’s gone to the other side now. As we all will, one day.”

 

That breaks the ice; other greetings follow, hugs are given, kind words spoken. No introductions are necessary, as all of them have come across one another during some battle or operation during or after the war, all of them except—

 

“Poe,” says Kes, “this is Ben.”

 

He studies the little boy. Definitely younger than him, and smaller too, although his oversized features—mouth too big for his small face, ears jutting out like two open doors, gangly limbs attached to puppylike hands and feet—suggest that might not be the case forever.

 

 _Nothing special,_ he decides.

 

Not like his mother. Senator Organa Solo, formerly Princess Leia of Alderaan, who stands tall, her husband handsome in his military best. She is beautiful, clearly in the prime of her career and her life. Small lines like whiskers crease the outside of her eyes, but otherwise she is youthful— not a single silver hair runs through her lustrous chocolate-brown braids.

 

Suddenly, Poe cannot remember if his mother has any grey hairs. He has the almost insatiable urge to go check on her, down in the cellar, to look on her face one more time and commit it to memory—but L’ulo’s hand keeps him fixed where he is.

 

So he studies the beautiful senator’s face instead. He memorizes that face, and that tired grimace, and the way her eyes flit down to check on her son, whose hand she holds, before returning to Luke’s while she listens to him reminisce about his and Shara’s adventures during the war.

 

In the years that follow, he will remember the beautiful Senator who smiled sadly at him.

 

He will remember that he wanted someone to hold his hand.

 

. . .

 

When they have finished with the eulogies and the mourning dirge, they set fire to the funeral pyre. It has been built from the Koyo trees of Kes Dameron’s orchard, and although the wood has not had time to be properly dried out, it still catches in seconds; darting flames lick their way up the structure, to the body. It’s draped in muslin, a white silhouette against the hazy cyan sky. Ben cannot stand the sight of the flames consuming her, turning her into a dark shadow within the orange blaze. He clings to the long skirts of his mother’s dress, and buries his face there.

 

The meadow, a clearing in the jungle maybe twenty meters across, is carpeted with soft moss, ferns, and lichen. It is filled with people—some famous, some not, some from the old Rebel alliance, some from the new Galactic Republic, some from the Yavin Civilian Defense Squad. But the meadow is oddly bereft of birds, or at least: none can be heard. In fact, not a solitary sound can be heard, except for the crackling roar of the growing fire.

 

He doesn’t know the woman under the burial shroud, he can’t _feel_ her like he can mom or dad or Luke or Lando or anyone else standing here, looking up at the pyre and watching this stranger burn to cinder.

 

There’s nothing, no hum, no light. Just a body. And now it’s burning, and Ben is frightened.

 

He slips away, stumbling over the roots of the massassi trees as he makes his way back towards the house where everyone has landed their spacecraft. No one notices him leave, he thinks. As he emerges once more from the wilderness, refuge appears to him in the shape of a bare patch of dirt that serves as a landing pad. An A-wing starfighter sits there, its sides gleaming in the brilliant afternoon sun.

 

The older boy is huddled beneath it, arms wrapped around his folded legs. Poe, his dad had called him. He’d peered down at Ben the way a priprak studies an earthworm from its perch on the branch of a tree, head cocked and assessing him for danger, or perhaps, for weaknesses.

 

He’d seemed… unimpressed. Not with Leia, though. Poe had stared at her like she held the sun and the moon and all the stars in the palm of her hand. Jealousy had curled in his stomach, scathing, just at the sight of his adoring study; his mother is his, and he barely gets any time with her, he can’t afford to let this interloper take one second of it. But now, from this distance Poe looks small, too. Pathetic. Sad. A little boy, hiding from the cruelties of the world.

 

Ben falters as he reaches the wing of the starfighter, waiting for Poe to notice him. He doesn’t at first; his head is tucked into the nest of his arms and only his dark curls can be seen. Finally, though, he does glance up, sending a scowl Ben’s way.

 

“Oh…” he says, taking a step back, “s-sorry…”

 

Poe rubs his nose along the length of his black jacket sleeve. His eyes are watery, and red-rimmed. Ben catches only a glimpse of them before Poe looks away. “S’okay. You can stay. If you want.”

 

So he does, sinking down onto the ground besides Poe. For what feels like an eternity, he watches Poe from the corner of his eyes; but the boy takes no notice, his gaze remains riveted on the thin plume of smoke that rises above the jungle’s canopy.

 

Poe sniffles, and Ben sniffles too, although he doesn’t know why. He’s not crying, but Poe is—two silent wet trails shining their way down his cheeks—but he _feels_ as if he could at any moment.

 

“What’s wrong with _you?_ ” Poe asks at last, a raw squawk.

 

“Nothing, what’s wrong with you?” Ben rejoins, too quickly. He blushes at the idiocy of the question as soon as it’s out, and begins digging a hole into the dirt with the toe of his tightly-buckled dress shoes.

 

Poe doesn’t deride him, though, for which he’s thankful. All he says is: “The funeral. It’s my mom.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Your mom—she’s a princess, isn’t she?”

 

Ben sneaks a peek at Poe, but he’s still watching the smoke drift up into the ether. “Well—not exactly,” he says, “she was.”

 

“So what are you? A prince?”

 

Is he? In all of Ben’s five years, he’s never thought to ask. “Dunno,” is all he can muster.

 

Poe nods. “My mom isn’t a—she—she wasn’t a princess. She was a pilot.”

 

“My dad’s a pilot!” says Ben, desperate for something that they can share.

 

He’d like for this boy to look at him like an equal. He’d like to have a friend. He has toys by the dozen, he has Elsie and the other droids, he sees Lando and Uncle Luke every so often, but they don’t really count. _A friend,_ he thinks, trying not to get his hopes up, _would be nice._

 

“Oh.” Poe wipes at his cheeks, then shifts to peer at Ben. “My mom took me up in this RZ-1 all the time. Even let me take over the controls. You ever fly?”

 

He swallows. “I’m not allowed to yet, but my dad—lets me sit in the cockpit of the _Falcon_ with him, sometimes.”

 

Poe’s eyes go round and wide as saucers. “The _Millennium Falcon_?” he asks, breathless. “Did you fly it here?”

 

“No.” Glumly, Ben returns to digging his hole in the dirt as he parrots the line his parents have told him so many times: “It’s not secure, we have to use the Senate-approved transport for public outings.”

 

“...Oh.”

 

Uneasy with the awkward pause, and Poe’s disappointment, and how his eyes swing back toward the smoke, he blurts out, “This ship is nice!”

 

“My mom flew it during the war,” Poe informs him. “She modified it herself.”

 

“What kinda engine?” he asks.

 

“Dual sublight. _And_ a hyperdrive.”

 

“Neat.”

 

For an instant, Ben forgets the reason why he is here—why he and Poe have met today. All he can think about is being eight years old some day, and allowed to pilot a ship. Maybe an A-wing, like Poe. Maybe even the _Falcon_ , if his dad says it’s okay. “Does it have laser cannons?”

 

“Yeah! Borsetel RG-9. Two of ‘em. Wanna see?”

 

Poe’s mood has improved in the few minutes they’ve been speaking. His face is alight with enthusiasm, and he’s already scrambling to his feet. He shoves a hand at Ben’s face. “Come on, let’s go!”

 

“Yeah!” Ben shouts, taking the proffered hand and pulling himself up. “Let’s go!”

 

. . .

 

Poe and Ben climb into the cockpit of his mom’s A-wing—or is it his now? Or his dad’s? He’s not really sure. In any case, they pull the transparisteel canopy down over themselves so they can properly pretend they are flying into battle against the Empire, and for a couple minutes, he forgets about everything but simulating a battle scenario.

 

 _He’s not so bad,_ Poe decides. Quiet, a little excitable—easy to rile up. When Poe starts shouting back at him about TIE fighters hot on their tail, Ben shrieks and bounces in his chair, all full of unburnt frenetic energy.

 

After, they head towards the cruiser in which Ben and his family arrived.

 

But the cruiser, when they reach it, is being guarded by armed security droids. Ben freezes at the sight of them. They say nothing, merely turning their unblinking glowing eyes towards the boys.

 

“I hate them,” he mutters. He spins to look up at Poe, and repeats himself for good measure. “I _hate_ them.”

 

And after a long look at the fearful trembling in the younger boy’s face, Poe thinks maybe he does as well.

 

“Want to see something _else_ neat?” he asks, glad, in a way, to be using Ben’s fear and his self-appointed job as the boy’s babysitter as a distraction from his own misery.

 

A shy nod, a soft-voiced assent. “Okay.”

 

“This way,” he says, with a jerk of his head. “It’s an uneti tree, but I don’t know much more about it ‘cept it’s special.”

 

Ben, a little out of breath from keeping pace with Poe as they hurry towards the other end of the Dameron property, exclaims, “My uncle—told me—about the uneti trees! They’re—Force trees.”

 

Poe has grown up with the tree. It was a gift from Master Skywalker, a sapling planted by his mother and his father not long after his parents moved to Yavin 4. It towers over their heads now, its delicate yellow leaves fluttering in a breeze that Poe can’t feel. The deep grooves in its grey-brown bark travel up the length of its tall trunk, and even out across the thicker boughs.

 

“Bet I can climb it,” he says, idly, not knowing if he really can, not expecting the younger boy to call him on his bluff.

 

Ben’s eyes have gone all big; he claps his hands in anticipation. “Okay!”

 

 _Kriff,_ thinks Poe. It’s not a word he’s supposed to know, although he’s heard his father mutter it on plenty of occasions.

 

He tries as best he can to grip the tough bark. With a grunt, he pushes himself up, arms stretched wide in an attempt to encircle the thick trunk, his boots planted against its base. A heft, a kick of his feet, a mad scrabbling effort to climb—and Poe finds himself seated on the ground beside the tree, a soft ‘oof’ issuing from his lips before he can swallow it.

 

“It’s too big,” he declares, his pride hurt.

 

“I’m gonna try,” says Ben, pressing his lips together. His nostrils flare when he blows out a determined breath.

 

“No,” Poe warns, “it’s too—” but Ben is already up. Within seconds—hands and feet flying, thin limbs swinging like a woolamander’s—he’s settled himself on one of the lowest branches.

 

“Made it!” he calls out, looking up, while Poe looks up at him.

 

Poe clenches his fists. Who is this kid, anyway? How did he do that? “Okay, good job,” he calls back, with a forced laugh, “now—”

 

There’s no stopping Ben, though. He’s climbing again, up, up, up.

 

And all Poe can do is watch.

 

. . .

 

Ben keeps his eyes closed as he ascends from branch to branch. He’s not sure why he does that, in hindsight, it’s just… an instinct.

 

And as he climbs upwards, he feels something strange. It’s as if all of the life on Yavin 4 is looking to him—seeking him out. A silent exchange of information is taking place, wherein he seems to know, all at once, each being down to the atom, each atom down to the electron, each electron down to the quark…

 

But where he suddenly knows the minute, finite details of life on this planet, he sees at the same time everything from a distance…

 

…The hot thick mists that hover around the tops of the trees, mingling with the smoke that rises up from the pyre where a woman’s body has been burned. Only ash and bone remain now. The miasma of resigned acceptance that hangs in the air there—from years of so much loss, neverending loss, everyone still standing around trying to tell funny stories and kind stories, trying to collectively conjure her presence through the power of word one more time before she is lost forever, her memory fading to the crackling fuzz of an old hologram…

 

The senseless hunger of the piranha beetles as they gnaw away at the world, the heart-pounding fear of the whisper birds as they hide in their nests, hoping the stintarils will pass them over without notice, hoping in their simple way that they will see another dawn, a dawn that the charred body will never see—and beneath that, the sounds made by those things without sense: the burbling of water over jagged rocks, the feather-light landing of a dying nebula orchid on the forest floor.

 

He can even see things that are very far away. Somewhere in the Unknown Regions, a pale creature—too tall, too withered and mole-like to be human, with eyes of ice blue that cut like razors—he is watching Ben. Even now, his eyes turn to Ben, and he sees him. The darkness, it’s there. It waits for him.

 

It’s only a matter of time.

 

His father’s fear—of him. His mother’s love, intertwined with her trepidation like an Alderaanian braid—fear, from her too. Betrayal, hot as the gases of Yavin and just as noxious. There is something about the Force, something she knows—a family secret, a feeling she’s had since he quickened inside of her, a reason she’d hoped he would never develop any sensitivity to the Force, something about Ben’s grandfather, a secret, a secret, a secret, and now he knows it, he knows, he knows everything—

 

And Ben can feel all of it. Ben _is_ all of it, all at once. It’s dizzying, this awareness.

 

He looks down at Poe. The boy is frowning up at him, no longer laughing—although Ben knows now that he wasn’t _really_ laughing, only uncomfortable and nervous and embarrassed that Ben, this unimpressive son of the beautiful Senator Organa-Solo, this _weakling_ , could do what he could not.

 

He can feel Poe’s sadness, how strange. And what’s most strange is that he understands perfectly. It feels familiar to him—it feels like his own sadness. Loneliness.

 

For one second, he can see it: they are the same, he and Poe. They might have been brothers, for how alike they feel.

 

But Poe’s face is clouded, he looks so concerned his expression verges on angry—frustration, a puzzle set before him for which he knows no solutions. He backs away, one foot blindly shoved behind the other, never taking his dark eyes off of Ben.

 

“Come on, it’s not that hard, just close your eyes and let the tree show you!” he yells down, but he flinches at the sound of his own voice. So deep, a profound basso, like a grown man’s. And rumbling in triplicate, like it’s not only his own vocal chords producing sound, but several men speaking in harmony. He shakes his head, ready to try again, and this time it’s only his squeaky little-boy voice that inquires:

 

“Poe?”

 

A moment frozen in crystal, an unbreakable shard that cuts him to the bone: Poe shakes his head, then—he turns. And runs.

 

. . .

 

When Kes Dameron asks Poe, many hours after the funeral has ended, what he and the son of Han Solo spoke of when they wandered off, Poe lies to him. It is a lie of omission, but the truth unspoken is often just as dishonest as an untruth spoken. It is Poe’s first real lie, but it is far from the last.

 

“We just talked about starships,” he mumbles. “Then he climbed the tree. I got bored, and went inside.”

 

He never mentions the hum of life and death that started up the second Ben's small palms made contact with the uneti tree's bark, a bone-rattling chorus of all the universe’s energy that rang out—inside his mind, or in the air, he’s never really sure.

 

He never mentions that he felt that song flow through him, that the strange energy filled him with knowledge of things he couldn't possibly know.

 

He never tells his father that when little Ben Solo twisted around to shout down at Poe, fingers like claws digging into the tree’s long limbs, his eyes glowed scarlet—like the surface of the gas giant Yavin when it hovers particularly close in the sky at dusk, like the blood of the stintaril that died near Poe’s house. Red. Red like hunger. Red like violence. Red like wrath.

 

He never tells anyone about that.

 

And he never, ever, ever, _ever_ goes near the Force tree again.

 

. . .

 

Ben gingerly descends the tree after Poe has run. He jumps the last meter, from the lowest bough to the jungle floor, and his feet hit the dirt with a small ‘thud.’ For a second— one breathtaking, illuminating, life-altering second—he remembers everything he’s just seen.

 

He knows all the secrets of the universe, or so he thinks.

 

And then, like an eclipse moving into place, his knowledge of the universe grows narrower, and narrower again, and then it is a sliver, and then it is gone, and he is left with the mind of a little boy, who remembers nothing of the last five minutes.

 

At first, he is confused.

 

But even that fades after a time. So after wiping his grubby hands along the legs of his trousers, he wanders off to find his parents.

 

. . .

 

Many years later, when Poe Dameron shoots at his stormtroopers during a skirmish on the outskirts of a small village named Tuanal, Kylo does not recognize him. Not at first. He sees the man he _is_ , but that man bears very little resemblance to the sad, gawky boy he _was_.

 

Kylo still senses him, though, and turns just in time to spot the ultramarine blue plasma coming his way. He reaches out, freezes it in its trajectory, and the man who dared to shoot it as well.

 

Poe is brought before him, shoved to his knees, hands bound. He is bedraggled, his weathered jacket the color of dark desert sand with details were obviously once a vivid crimson, now faded and battered—his deep-set eyes glittering with malice, frustration, determination. A good soldier fighting a futile war. A lone curl, slicked with sweat, brushes his forehead, and as he stares up at the mask Kylo wears, he works his jaw, squinting at him.

 

“So who talks first? You talk first, I talk first?” he asks. It is at that moment that Kylo realizes that they’ve met.

 

No, not just met. He knows this man. _You,_ thinks Kylo. _I might have been you_. He doesn't say this. Instead, reeling, he marvels:

 

“The old man gave it to _you_.”

 

Why? Why give _him_ the map to Luke Skywalker? Poe Dameron isn’t special. Poe Dameron is just a pilot. Poe Dameron was never chosen by Snoke as Master of the Knights of Ren, Poe Dameron is not the son of anyone...

 

 _Shara Bey,_ he remembers, studying Poe’s face for some trace of her. But he never really knew her, did he? A body draped in white, aflame against a cloudless sky.

 

“It’s just very hard to understand you with all the—” Poe jeers.

 

Kylo gives the ‘troopers the command to search him.

 

“...apparatus…” he continues, winded, but still armed with his glib jokes, even as he is pulled to his feet. He is patted down, nothing is found. Kylo allows himself one more moment to study the Resistance pilot.

 

“Put him on board,” he directs.

 

At this moment, seeing him after all these years, does Kylo want to embrace him, or kick in his teeth? He remembers Dameron’s pain, he was there to live some of that terrible day with him. Does the man know him? Can he sense Kylo, beneath the mask, as Kylo can sense him? As he boards his ship he ponders, although only in the abstract: if he took off his helmet and asked Dameron about mothers, Dameron’s and his own, would the best pilot in the Resistance embrace _him_ , or kick in _his_ teeth?

 

If he explained how Luke failed him as only a guardian and a teacher and a mentor can, would Poe still look at him like he is a monster?

 

But—no. When he looked at Dameron just now, he _saw_ him. Past and present, he could feel him in the Force, a bright star boldly humming. And Poe looked at him, and saw a joke to be made, lip curled in a sneer.

 

He is a monster. _Kill them all,_ he’d said to Phasma.

 

Kylo is reminded why Snoke has told him to set this compassion aside.

 

_They will only hurt you, if you let them. They already have, haven’t they?_

 

. . .

 

Commander Dameron is still unconscious when the Master of the Knights of Ren enters the interrogation chamber. Kylo takes another moment to study the man, who he has not laid eyes on since they were both small, sad boys.

 

How different he looks, and yet—there, in the strong curve of his cheekbone, in his thick brows, in the slicked curls of his dark hair, which shine silvery blue under the illumination bank—there is the boy Ben met on a hot, muggy afternoon on Yavin 4.

 

But overall, he has changed. Here is a man who has accepted his legacy. Kylo supposes that Shara Bey and Kes Dameron would be proud to see him like this: defiant, rebellious, a skillful pilot and a daring soldier.

 

Does Poe remember his mother? Does he think of her often? Does he miss her? Kylo wonders, although he does not ask.

 

Does he remember a boy named Ben Solo? Does Kylo, even? What is memory, really? What good is it, if it can be shaped, if it can be manipulated, if it can be lost? Kylo remembers a mid-afternoon funeral on a jungle planet. Phantosmia—he still smells the chimerical scents of orchid and ozone and burning embalmed flesh. He hears the whooping cry of woolamanders and he remembers a boy, short and stocky with a head overrun by rich brown curls, who sat under an A-wing interceptor, weeping for the mother he’d lost, who was also his hero.

 

He remembers an arm slung over bony shoulders, a stupid joke passed back and forth as two children—so young, with features they had not yet grown into, legacies they had not yet understood—trundled off to look at a tree.

 

He remembers a very powerful truth, shown to him by a tree, which he’d forgotten until just now, and a frightened boy meters below his feet who had turned and fled in horror.

 

But Kylo wants no more of Ben Solo’s memories. Before him is a man, not a boy. An enemy of the First Order. He is strapped to a chair, he has been tortured, his face is swollen and bloodied, but he has not yielded. These things have happened because he stands between Kylo and Luke Skywalker.

 

The knowledge he holds in his mind—memories, real or false—it must be gleaned, dissected, analyzed, acted upon. It must be. Kylo _must_ have it. He must.

 

The time for beloved memories, for secrets, for comfort, for mothers and fathers, for boys who might have been like friends, for friends who might have been like brothers—

 

That time has passed.

 

He tilts his head and drawls, the vocal modifier in his helmet turning his voice into a deep metallic purr:

 

“I had no _idea_ we had the best pilot in the Resistance on board.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my wonderful beta-reader [Becca](http://baldoren.tumblr.com/), who straightened out my em-dash usage and gave this her canon-verse savvy inspection! 
> 
> ETA: oops, I almost forgot to thank the person who inspired this! Many thanks to [destinies](http://destinieswritten.tumblr.com/) who shared this headcanon with me and let me play around with it!
> 
> I haven't written many in-universe fic's before, so if you liked this maybe let me know? :)
> 
> Here are some things I referenced in the story!
> 
> The [poem](http://archive.emilydickinson.org/correspondence/howland/p3.html) is from a correspondence between Emily Dickinson and William Howland. The first line, "sic transit gloria mundi," is latin for the phrase, "thus passes the glory of the world." Sidenote: It is also [part](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_transit_gloria_mundi) of the papal coronation ceremony. The line "how doth the busy bee" is Dickinson's parody of moralistic poetry and maybe my favorite line, "Dum vivimus vivamus" translates to: "while we live, let us live."
> 
> Where is [Hanna City](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hanna_City)? On [Chandrila](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Chandrila)!
> 
> What's an [airspeeder](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Airspeeder)?
> 
> Who are the [Pantorans](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Pantoran)? Who is [T-2LC](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/T-2LC)? Who is [BX-778](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/BX-778)? Who are [Kes Dameron](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kes_Dameron) and [Shara Bey](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shara_Bey)? Who is [L'ulo L'ampar](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/L%27ulo_L%27ampar)? Who are the [Duros](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Duros)?
> 
> What's a [Delta-12 _Skysprite_ -class](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Delta-12_Skysprite-class)?
> 
> Where is [Empress Teta](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Empress_Teta/Legends) and what are its [Crown Jewels](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Empress_Teta's_Crown_Jewels)?
> 
> What was the [_Inflictor_](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Inflictor)?
> 
> Who are the [Pathfinders](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Pathfinders)?
> 
> Who is [Sosha Soruna](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sosha_Soruna)?
> 
> What was [Operation: Cinder](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Operation:_Cinder)?
> 
> What is an [RZ-1 A-wing interceptor/starfighter](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/RZ-1_A-wing_interceptor)?
> 
> What is an [Uneti/Force tree](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Uneti_tree)?
> 
> Okay, that's all from me. Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
